Details, shmetails but McGrady averaged 31 minutes in his final season in Toronto. I would point out that in his third season he was 22. If we wanted to compare T-Mac to DD based on age then we would be comparing T-Mac's Sophmore season to DD's rookie season. Here is how that stacks up:

What we see, based strictly on stats, is that age 21 McGrady had a much more rounded game, yet wasn't close to the efficiency DeRozan operated under. What we know from game film is that McGrady had a much better handle than DeRozan at age 21, which is validated by the stats. In terms of defense I feel McGrady's life was a lot easier than DeRozan's given that those old Raptors clubs valued and played defense much more so than the 2009-2010 team. DeRozan has no help and what's more is sometimes going to be forced away from his match up to try and eliminate teammate's mistakes. At age 21, McGrady is the superior player. One thing of note though is DeMar doesn't need the ball in his hands as much and isn't driven by his offense. I feel DeMar can effectively play in any system because of his willingness where as McGrady, in the past, wanted always to be the center of attention. Ah, the intangibles...

I think everyone should look at Demar's biggest strength and compare to Vince. We know that Vince was a better shooter and a more skilled player but how do him and Demar compare when we look at free throw attempts? I'll be using a stat which compares the number of free throws a player gets to the FG attempts he takes.

VC: the highest ratio he ever posted in his career was in his 8th year and it was 39 %. He was never over 36% any other time in his career and averaged 31%.

Demar: Posted a 37.8% in his first year. This will likely drop as he develops a jumper.

What this tells you is that Demar is already as good at getting to the line as VC was in the prime of his career.

Now we look at a better comparison,IMO in T-Mac

T-Mac: first year in the NBA put up a 0.28; However, in his second year he put up a 0.40. For those who may be confused this means for every 10 shots T-mac took that season, he took 4 free throws. Over his carreer he has averaged a 0.34.

Demar compares favorably with both of these two superstars in terms of how often he got to the line vs how often he shot in a game. This is Demar's strength and what will make him great: he gets to the line and this preseason aside, he takes good shots.

I disagree. Vince could have lived off the line if he wanted it, he just didn't want all the contact. With good reason given his low pain tolerance and being prone to injuries. Vince could do everything on the court and make it look easy. When DeMar develops a strong handle and shows he understands the game on a high level then we can suggest he is better than Vince was at getting to the line. DeMar last season was sort of like Bosh in his first season. He just didn't have the outside game and so he tried to get closer to the basket on his attempts. It's also why his FG% was so nice. I really hope he continues to be an inside, out type of player but I feel as soon as he develops a mid-range or perimeter game he'll start moving out of the trenches more and more.

Details, shmetails but McGrady averaged 31 minutes in his final season in Toronto. I would point out that in his third season he was 22. If we wanted to compare T-Mac to DD based on age then we would be comparing T-Mac's Sophmore season to DD's rookie season. Here is how that stacks up:

What we see, based strictly on stats, is that age 21 McGrady had a much more rounded game, yet wasn't close to the efficiency DeRozan operated under. What we know from game film is that McGrady had a much better handle than DeRozan at age 21, which is validated by the stats. In terms of defense I feel McGrady's life was a lot easier than DeRozan's given that those old Raptors clubs valued and played defense much more so than the 2009-2010 team. DeRozan has no help and what's more is sometimes going to be forced away from his match up to try and eliminate teammate's mistakes. At age 21, McGrady is the superior player. One thing of note though is DeMar doesn't need the ball in his hands as much and isn't driven by his offense. I feel DeMar can effectively play in any system because of his willingness where as McGrady, in the past, wanted always to be the center of attention. Ah, the intangibles...

Dude stop trying to change the argument..age is irrelvant were talking a few years,you cant quantify that into an argument,if a guy can play he can play it dont matter if its his 2nd year or a rook if he 20 or 23....fact is when Mcgrady played reg mins here at the end he showed he was a star and then went to ORL and became a front line top 5 player..stop trying to spin shit toting usless stats.....

This is why i hate arguing with stat people...cuz yall try to spin everything...
elite 2 guards beast almost right away with playing time..(i said a couple seasons)

you cannot refute that cuz the elite guys became elite stars right away with PT....

DD is not there yet but with consistent mins this year we should see it.....

Its true that history shows that elite players come into the league looking like elite players..... However I think we're all pushing unreasonable expectations on Derozan - His realistic ceiling is Iguodala/Jrich type of atheletes with OK jumpshots but by no means dominate teams off the bounce...

Dude stop trying to change the argument..age is irrelvant were talking a few years,you cant quantify that into an argument,if a guy can play he can play it dont matter if its his 2nd year or a rook if he 20 or 23....fact is when Mcgrady played reg mins here at the end he showed he was a star and then went to ORL and became a front line top 5 player..stop trying to spin shit toting usless stats.....

This is why i hate arguing with stat people...cuz yall try to spin everything...
elite 2 guards beast almost right away with playing time..(i said a couple seasons)

you cannot refute that cuz the elite guys became elite stars right away with PT....

DD is not there yet but with consistent mins this year we should see it.....

I illustrated that it's not cut and dry as you're making it out to be. I'm not spinning anything. You made a statement and I proceeded to lay out logical analysis. I'm not a "stat person", I clearly used things other than stats as well. Maybe you don't like debating with people who make good points?

Edgar wrote:

Its true that history shows that elite players come into the league looking like elite players..... However I think we're all pushing unreasonable expectations on Derozan - His realistic ceiling is Iguodala/Jrich type of atheletes with OK jumpshots but by no means dominate teams off the bounce...

The only thing Demar at Age 21 is missing, is a reliable shooting game. His ability to develop a mid-range and 3-point shot (something the coaches don't want him to use this season) will determine if he will be a star. The kid does have that killer instinct (look at the Master P video that he's in) and he's a gym rat like Weems.

This year the coaches want him to get to the free throw line as much as possible and improve his positioning and defensive awareness. Also, improve his ball handling so that he can beat guards one on one.These tasks are all very achievable for the kid, he'll develop his shot over time no worries.

Edit: As for the ESPN article shit as usual. The praises were misplaced and the players they should be talking about (Kleiza) are not mentioned.

ugh t-mac ? really breh ? As soon as he got mins he became an all star....in Toronto he sat on the becnh for 3 seasons..same with Kobe in LA....Kobe played in the All star game his 2nd year in the league and was the MVP (lol @ ending the discussion on THOSE 2 players)

and you fell on ur sword bringing up Jesus Shuttlesworth and Danny Granger...foreal man do you read i said couple of years,was Granger not an all star his 2nd year in the league ?

smh

ho man i don’t even know where to start responding to this.

1) yes, kobe made the all star team in his second season. he was voted in the year after winning the dunk contest as the most hyped heir to mj’s throne on the most popular team in the world. hell of an accomplishment, really, right up there with other such van-voting atrocities as stevie franchises 03-04 campaign, all the years yao and knee-mac got voted in having played 5 games or less, and every yi jianliang near-appearance. and kobe was not the mvp of that all star game, not sure where you got that.

btw bean’s numbers that second year were 15.4 ppg, 3.1 rpg, and 2.5 apg in 26 minutes. or basically exactly what that aforementioned scout said would be a nice jump to expect from derozan this year, albeit probably in a few more minutes.

2) kobe and knee-mac’s first two seasons were a lot closer to demar’s rookie year than you probably think. look them up. apollo did a good job summarizing the similarities and differences between them for mcgrady’s second year.

3) i never meant to imply i thought anyone in the second list was elite, or that derozan had at all similar games to those players… i gave examples of wing players who went on to have very productive careers and made all-star teams after having posted pretty similar numbers to derozan in their rookie years in similar minutes, and who took a few years to hit their strides. basically the criteria was 15-25 actual mpg (derozan averaged 21.6), with comparable per 36 ppg and PER numbers.

4) no. granger was not an all star his second year in the league. he made it his fourth year, a few months away from his 26th birthday. dd won’t be that age until 2014-2015.

in granger’s second year he put up 13.9ppg, 4.6rpg, and 1.4apg in huge minutes (34), hardly the immediate impact given minutes you’re talking about.

5) “foreal man do you read i said couple of years”
yes i do read, you said elite 2’s have an immediate impact given minutes, and i countered with examples of player’s that took time to develop before going on to become all stars. i don’t consider the second tier there to be ‘elite’ (except maybe ray in his prime), but i think most raptors fans would be happy if dd went on to have as productive a career as any of those guys. and if your argument is that he won’t go on to become michael jordan or kobe bryant level-elite, than congratulations, i agree with you. that is unlikely. way to go out on a fuckin limb.

6) the whole point of my post which was apparently not made explicitly enough is that it’s way too premature to dismiss derozan with subjective and meaningless assertions that he doesn’t have ‘it,’ whatever the fuck ‘it’ is. i illustrated that with a list of good players that took time to develop and didn’t have the immediate impact you insist that elite 2’s do. no doubt that there is also an endlessly long list of players that never achieved squat. we have no idea which list derozan will be on when his career is said and done, and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous.

Dwayne Wade never even entered the league until age 22 and didn't blow up until the next year, age 23.

Reggie Miller didn't enter the league until age 22 and didn't blow up until two years later at age 24.

Exact same story for Allan Houston as for Reggie.

Ditto for Michael Finley.

Oh and here's a really good one for you. Assistant head coach Alex English didn't enter the league until age 23 and it took him until age 26 before he blew up. He then went on to average 27PPG from age 27 to age 35.

... And just so everyone realizes, Carter entered the league at age 22. DeMar is entering his second season at age 21. How much more polished would he be if he had gone through three years of college like Carter? Don't know but next year the young gun could be over 20PPG, that's a higher clip than Carter at that same age. Just some food for thought...